
Look to Labor Law to Solve Student Association Conflicts
A few years ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the University of Windsor was withholding the health and dental insurance money that it collects on behalf of the University of Windsor Student Alliance. Allegedly, the university was fretting about the governance of the student association. The story sounds similar …

Ed news highlights, Trump budget, fewer international applicants, general ed, and more: Required Readings, 03.16.17
For those interested in more general education news roundups, NPR is now providing a weekly discussion of top stories. Here is the most recent version. The Atlantic is doing the same. Meanwhile, if you or the institution you work for is a subscriber to the Chronicle of Higher Ed, you can …

Critical Thinking: Then and Now
Once again, I am writing about Richard Paul’s work on critical thinking. He wrote a whole lot about it and had excellent things to say. I would strongly recommend checking out the source of what I am briefly touching on here, because he goes into much more detail and depth …

Socratic Questioning 101
In my newfound love of Richard Paul’s excellent work on critical thinking, I bring you another short summary of some of his useful ideas in teaching: a taxonomy of Socratic questions. These can be very useful when thinking of what kinds of questions to ask students when you are trying …

Selling and Promoting Alternative Medicine Around Campus
There is a lot that is wrong in the world today, and this is far from the worst problem. But it has been bugging me for several months now: my old university sells homeopathic medicine in its drugstore. Most readers of the Skepchick Network will know what homeopathy is, but …

More on the ED Dept., sanctuary campuses, ID science standards, apps, and science ed videos: Required Readings, 02.17.17
An Education Reform Report produced by the Council for National Policy recommends that the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education be dissolved, promotion of religious education and homeschooling,promote religious schools and home schooling, and enshrining of “historic Judeo-Christian principles” as a basis for instruction. The group has close ties to chief White …

Teaching Critical Thinking: Strong vs. Weak
Recently I’ve been familiarizing myself with Richard Paul’s work on critical thinking and reviewing some of the scientific literature on it. After reading the recent Stanford Study I realized I needed to step up my game when it came to teaching critical thinking. A definition seemed like a good place to …

Betsy DeVos, international students, school policing, LGBTQ censorship, and more: Required Readings, 01.30.17
Welcome to a VERY belated edition of Required Readings. Quite honestly, once I hit the winter break (I work for a system where campuses are closed between Christmas and New Year’s, paid even), I mentally and physically crashed. Not to mention that I have been completely speechless at what has been …

Towards a Campus Activism Reading List
Last month, I was reading an article written by (or at least attributed to) the Canadian columnist Margaret Wente entitled “The radicals have taken over: Academic extremism comes to Canada.” It’s a fairly standard take down of campus anti-racist, feminist and pro-LGBTQ politics, but I was interested in how it …

Meaning What We Say, Saying What We Mean
Recently on social media, I posted this Slate article by Sam Kriss criticising Eric Garland’s popular “Game Theory” tweetstorm, which has been shared widely by those on the left who continue to feel shaken and demoralised by the results of the recent US presidential election. I generally try to avoid making too …